10 dead in crashes; I-75 temporarily closed Monday morning

By Cindy Swirko and Chad SmithStaff writers

Sunday

Jan 29, 2012 at 7:26 AMJan 29, 2012 at 4:18 PM

Ten people were killed early Sunday morning in a string of crashes involving about 20 vehicles on Interstate 75 near Gainesville after smoke from a brush fire on Paynes Prairie reduced visibility to nearly zero.

Ten people were killed early Sunday morning in a string of crashes involving about 20 vehicles on Interstate 75 near Gainesville after smoke from a brush fire on Paynes Prairie reduced visibility to nearly zero.

Witnesses described hitting a wall of smoke so thick they could not see the car in front of them, and then hearing collisions and the screams of the trapped and dying.

Mangled sedans, semitrailers and sport utility vehicles littered the highway in both directions, a half-mile going north, a half-mile going south of the first crashes.

In addition to the fatalities, 21 people were treated for their injuries at two area hospitals— 18 at Shands at the University of Florida, with six in the trauma center and 12 in the emergency room, and three at North Florida Regional Medical Center.

Officials had not released the names of the victims as of late Sunday.

The highway was closed in both directions at around 4 a.m. Sunday. By 11 p.m. Sunday, the Florida Highway Patrol had reopened the southbound lanes. The northbound lanes were opened earlier in the evening.

While still untangling the carnage that unfolded, deputies were preparing for similar smoke conditions today. Florida Forest Service spokeswoman Ludie Bond said smoke was getting thicker on the prairie at about 6:30 p.m. and, depending on weather conditions like wind, it could again blow west and hang over the interstate.

Investigators late Sunday continued to clear the highway and account for the victims even as they pieced together the sequence of events that led to what many of the veteran law enforcement officers called the worst traffic accident of their careers.

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A wildfire started on Paynes Prairie on Saturday afternoon and consumed about 60 acres before it was contained that night. Officials at one point Sunday said the fire was started by humans, and not by a natural cause such as a lightning strike, but they backed away from that later in the day.

As the smoke settled overnight, visibility on the two major roads nearby — I-75 and U.S. 441 — continued to deteriorate.

Alachua County Sheriff's Sgt. Todd Kelly said he received a page about midnight Saturday that U.S. 441 was closed in the 9600 block because of an accident. Shortly after, he was notified that I-75 was closed at mile marker 376 north of Micanopy.

The Florida Highway Patrol, which had closed the interstate because of the smoke, reopened the highway a few hours later when conditions appeared to improve.

“It was assessed. Conditions improved to a point where the road was reopened,'' FHP Lt. Patrick Riordan said.

At about 3:45 a.m., the first of the deadly dominoes began to fall.

In the darkness and dense smoke, the vehicles began to pile up with sickening efficiency.

A Toyota Matrix was sandwiched between two semis.

A body remained in a car that had crashed into a FedEx trailer and was crushed beneath a pickup truck.

The car, truck, trailer and another nearby semitrailer were all gutted by a fire that smoldered as the sun rose on the prairie.

FHP troopers and Alachua County sheriff's deputies were tending to crashes when the new ones were occurring.

“That's a very scary thing when you can't see anything and hear the squealing of tires and don't know if 2,000 pounds of metal is coming at you,” Kelly said.

Matt Palumbo was driving home to Micanopy from a party in Gainesville and made it onto the southbound interstate just before officials shut it down.

Police cars pulled out in front of traffic and stopped motorists, he said.

“We could see the lights of the patrol cars right in front of us, but that was about it,” he said.

Palumbo said that at about 3 a.m., he and the roughly 20 other motorists caught between the roadblock and the detour were escorted to Exit 374 at Micanopy.

But there was no indication the highway would be reopened — or that it should be.

“On the side of safety, I would think that they would have kept it closed,” he said. “I'm not surprised there was an accident.”

Donna Henry drove onto the prairie, and into the smoke, at 3:45 a.m.

“We just hit it, and you couldn't see anything,” said Henry, who was driving with friends back home to Palm Bay.

Her Toyota Camry struck a guardrail and ended up sideways in the inside lane. She managed to pull off to the side of the highway, where all she could do was listen.

“We were on the phone with 911,” she said. “You heard like 15 times somebody hit, from this side and that, north and south. It was bad.”

Hours after the crash, a truck driver who did not give her name stood alongside the northbound lanes of the interstate holding her head after suffering a bump.

“Just like a wall,” she said of the smoke. “You couldn't see the trees. You couldn't see the line on the street.”

Starting at about 4 a.m., the interstate between Exits 368 and 382 was closed as troopers surveyed the scenes, medical examiners removed bodies and crews repaired the roadway damaged by vehicle fires.

“When you have fog and are in a season when you have foggy conditions and smoke, we recognize the potential that it can affect road conditions. We had people out here monitoring.”

Riordan said the agency is trying to get more information about the decision to reopen the interstate. He said the decision requires approval from a supervising trooper, but he didn't know which trooper made the call.

“It is something we are going to look at, and when I get an opportunity to review that, I will address it with everybody,” Riordan said.

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Rick Dolan, operations administrator for the Florida Forest Service Waccasassa district headquartered in Gainesville, said the prairie basin is lower than the lanes heading north and south. Fog and smoke can settle in it. Sometimes it can be cleared by wind, only to settle again when the wind dies down.

“Fog tends to form in the early morning hours, and in general from 3 to 6 is when it's the heaviest. Winds could have picked up and cleared it out for a time. When the wind decreased, there was a chance to settle back to the ground,” Dolan said. “Fog settles in those low-lying areas. When the wind dies and the dispersion drops and everything settles in those low areas, traditionally in Paynes Prairie, it's more foggy than anywhere else.”

Andrew Shashy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Jacksonville, said the agency issued a smoke advisory at midnight Saturday for Alachua County because of the prairie fire, though the relatively low humidity of 70 percent to 80 percent meant that fog wasn't very dense.

“It would appear that fog was not too prevalent around there. It was probably mostly due to smoke,” Shashy said of the low visibility.

A sign on southbound 441 warned motorists of the smoke ahead, but FHP Lt. Patrick Riordan said he didn't know if similar signs had been placed on I-75.

Forestry firefighters spent the Saturday cutting new lines around the 62-acre fire and had it contained. It is more difficult, however, to dictate what smoke will do.

“They're working tirelessly, putting all the water on the hot spots, trying to help with the smoke issues, trying to do the best they can to decrease the effect the fire is having on the community and on the roadways,” said Bond, of the Florida Forest Service.

Riordan said FHP had multiple homicide investigators on the scene, but added it will take considerable time to determine how each accident happened.

Looking at the condition of some of the cars involved, Riordan said the construction of newer models saved some lives. He added that it is likely visibility was good and that drivers then suddenly hit a wall of smoke and fog.

Riordan said drivers need to be prepared for conditions that can change in an instant.

“What drivers can learn from this is that ... travel in these kinds of conditions can change very rapidly,” he said. “If there is not much traffic on the roadway, it can be deceiving in terms of safe driving conditions. Because of the lack of traffic, drivers should not let their guard down.”

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